


Voices (The Shrinking Window Remix)

by everlit (Ink)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: College, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, Ouroboros Mix Lightning Round, Post-Sburb, Remix, the first step is admitting it, too many cups of coffee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink/pseuds/everlit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aradia doesn't do sex gracefully--you've often teased her about the blotchy way she flushes, hoping to get a rise out of her--but there is something very beautiful about that momentary loss of control. It's the only time you can ever catch her off-balance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voices (The Shrinking Window Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Voices](https://archiveofourown.org/works/273548) by [anxiousAnarchist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/pseuds/anxiousAnarchist). 



_"I hear them too," she says. "Always. Like the rumble of a motor in the back of my mind."_

_"Oh._

_Oh, thank God."_

 

 

"I do hope I’m not going too fast," you say lazily, drumming against the inside of her thigh. She squirms, shifting against the sheets--

\--but when she speaks, she doesn't even sound flustered. "Mm, oh no, not--ah--at all--"

Aradia squeaks as you lick along her cunt; she twists like she's remembered, for a moment, that she doesn't want you there. You relish this part, the clenching of her fists against the bedspread and the hair falling into her open mouth. Aradia doesn't do sex gracefully--you've often teased her about the blotchy way she flushes, hoping to get a rise out of her--but there is something very beautiful about that momentary loss of control. It's the only time you can ever catch her off-balance.

This is your life now: a cramped one-room with hideous carpeting, overpriced burnt coffees, sex as a kind of one-upmanship. If Dave were here he'd tell you exactly how fucked up this is.

As far as you're concerned, Dave Strider doesn't have the right to tell you anything anymore.

Afterwards you lay there on that bed that isn't yours, the both of you breathing hard, not touching. You resist the urge to curl up into a ball. You resist the urge to cry. Instead you say, casually, "I do like your new bedspread, by the way. I've always been fond of cats."

She makes this noise, low in her throat. "You don't have to pull the passive-aggressive stuff with me, you know," she says.

You sit up in the bed, allow the sheets to pool round your waist. "I don't have any idea what you mean."

 

 

The woman behind the desk smiles like her, patient and accommodating and kind, just the faintest edge of pity clenched between her pursed lips. It irritates you. What has she ever done, this woman with her fat wrinkled fingers and her hideous cardigan--has she done anything in her life that is worthwhile? What right does she have to pity you?

(You who hunted down demons and swam with the elder gods, the Seer of Light, the master of the dark magics, you whose vision was infinite and knowledge unbounded--)

You sit there with your hands folded in your lap as she talks at you, every line of her face radiating gentle concern. _A little time off,_ she says; _I hope you don't look at this as a failure,_ she says; _I'm sure you'll be back in top form next semester,_ she says and you think about sending black lightning crackling through her and your fingers itch for your needles again--

Here in the office of the Dean of Students, in this floral-walled reality you and fifteen other kids fought so hard to regain, you give her your best smile. "Of course I will."

She nods, perfectly satisfied, like she believes you. You don't believe yourself.

You sign the leave of absence forms with a steady hand.

By the time you get out of there, it's begun to snow, and the sun is a traffic light half-hidden by the horizon. Two girls chase each other in the quad, one holding packed handfuls of snow; really, you think, they are the same age as you. You bite the inside of your cheek, hard.

You take a seat by the window of the coffeeshop that afternoon, stirring your drink with a practiced carelessness. For the next hour you watch the passersby shuffle down the sidewalk in their pea coats and awful knitted hats, savoring the slow burn of resentment, and you consider whether you would like her to show up or not. She doesn't. The bus ride home is long.

 

 

"Oh, it didn't work out!" she says. She shrugs, gives you a sheepish smile. "The grant money came up short; they couldn't afford to take another person along. So I'll be up here for the spring again."

You offer her a thin smile of your own. "That's too bad. I'm sure you must have been excited; it's a shame."

"I don't mind." Her eyes grow warmer. "A few setbacks, here and there--does it really matter, in the end? Besides," she adds, "there's a Turkish class this semester I've been dying to take, and I'll get to see you. There are two sides to everything."

(You haven't told her about the leave of absence yet. You plan to mention it offhandedly, at the exact moment it becomes impossible to do otherwise.)

"Does it occur to you," you say, "that you concede to the inevitable too easily? Knowing bureaucracy, I'm sure they could find the extra money if they tried hard enough."

She taps her straw idly against the top of her cup, looking down. Hair falls across her face, half-covering it; Aradia has long, dark locks she steadfastly refuses to pin or pull back. She likes it free, and doesn't mind that it occasionally makes her look like a kind of shade. "Some things happen for a reason. We get the job of figuring out what that reason is."

"Complacent of you."

She leans her head in one hand. "Whatever do you mean?"

"You've accepted your fate pretty easily, haven't you?" You lean forward, sliding easily into your thirteen-year-old self's skin. The concerned, the condescending. "The idea of what you're meant to be doing--are we all dancing out the same patterns we stepped into before the game, then?"

Aradia doesn't respond at first; she looks you up and down, eyes traveling over your lank hair, your clothes--clean, yes, perilously so, but worn to a thread, hanging uneasily off your thin frame. The circles under your eyes. "I hope not," she says. "I'd hate to think of you blowing up your schoolwork."

You snap the biscotti you are holding neatly in two.

She blinks.

You set one half down on the napkin, and nibble delicately at the other, all the while keeping your eyes on her. You are Rose Lalonde, and you will think of an appropriately cutting retort by the time you finish this biscuit.

But she shakes her head at you. "Come off it, Rose. Come back to my place and I'll order takeout." So gentle, so easy, so revolting.

(You can't remember the last time you had a full night of sleep.)

You let her take you back to her apartment; you let her pump you full of pad thai and crab rangoon; you let her eat you out and you let her throw one skinny arm around your shoulders, after, as you lie there on your side, hating her and hating herself. You breathe in, smelling sweat and Aradia's cucumber-melon shampoo.

There are few things you hate more than losing.

 

 

You show up again next week anyway.

This continues for some time.

 

 

They've got some jazz playing in the cafe--Billie Holiday, you think--and Aradia is humming along as the two of you pick apart your shared brownie.

"I was thinking about what you said last time," she says, nabbing a few small crumbs. "About us. About the nature of our selves."

You nod. "Mm. Can you really say that this iteration of yourself, sitting across from me, is the same girl who lived on Alternia? Or who inhabited the robot body? Or who went god-tier?"

She folds her slim fingers on top of each other. "But I remember all those Aradias, and everything they did. All their hopes--" she flashes her drink an ironic smile-- "and dreams. Doesn't that make me them?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

You take the last bit of brownie; she doesn't stop you. She never does. "On whether you believe the body is entangled with the soul. Our bodies shape us, after all."

Aradia hums. "But does wine change if you pour it into a different bottle?"

"I don't think bodies are bottles," you say.

She nods. "Well, you've never been dripped into one like a liquid. So that's fair, I suppose."

You set your drink down on the table, a little too hard. Aradia graciously ignores this.

"But surely," you start, leaning forward, "surely an Alternian would have an even stronger case for body-as-influence. After all--"

"--the hemospectrum." She draws up, as if pulled by strings. Her eyes flash. "Yes, of course, the hemospectrum. It all comes back to the hemospectrum, doesn't it?"

And at long last, you hear the bitterness in her voice. It makes you feel alive. "You don't think that being a member of the lowest order of the hemospectrum influenced your behavior and your outlook on life?"

"I don't," she says, "want to talk about the hemospectrum."

The smile is gone. Aradia is almost glaring at you, her face pinched, and kindness would dictate that you let it drop. Decency would dictate that you let it drop. But if Rose Lalonde was ever decent, she isn't now--and kindness has always been beneath her.

Hasn't it?

"Do you find," you say slowly, letting the words roll off your tongue, "that you no longer identify as a troll, now that you no longer inhabit a troll body? Do you think that has something to do with your eagerness to embrace your present life?"

She stands up. The chair squeaks its protest as she kicks it back. "You never lived it," she says. "It isn't some hook for you to hang your rhetoric on. You don't have the right."

You fold your hands in your lap and watch as she packs her books into her bag, slings the bag over her shoulder. She rattles the door on its hinges. Only once she is gone do you allow yourself to smile.

The smile sits strange, uncomfortable, on your face. You finish your coffee slowly, then walk home in the rain.

 

 

The next week you wait at your usual table for an hour, throwing back shot after shot of espresso. She never comes. You tell yourself you weren't waiting.

When you get back to your apartment, you make a beeline for the bed, tracking mud across the carpet and your discarded clothes. You don't eat. You don't email your mother, even passive-aggressively. You don't call Aradia.

(Three one two two four seven one. You have the number memorized; you never saved it to contacts.)

Morning comes and you don't bother to get out of bed. You have nowhere to be, and the distance from your mattress to your closet to the front door grows greater every day--why not just stay inside and watch the afternoon light filter through the broken blinds?

 

 

_You want to ask, can you help me?_

_You can't._


End file.
